The adventures, stories, and inspirations of Sister Jaynanne Petersen while serving an LDS mission to Vancouver, Canada, as recorded by her mom...

Monday, March 11, 2013

FIRST P-DAY IN CANADA!

WELL HEY HEY HEY FAMILY AND FRIENDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!wanna know something? I'm in CANADA! wha-what?! it's pretty much the best ever. Ha so I last week we just got word from the first presidency that we can now emial not just family, but also friends and we can do it for two hours! that makes me so happy! BUT i just spent over an hour reading all the emails so my responses might be real short. I'd really appreciate letters too because letters are just the best! :) plus I got a cute folder to put them in so..! OH. MY. HECK. SPENCER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so so so so so so so proud of you. I can't believe you got called to Czech Republic/Slovack! WHAT? you're making me get all emotional. I'm just so proud of you and I love you so much. You are such a great example to me and You make me want to be a better missionary out here! It's a lot of hard work so get ready! You're a great little brother Spenc and I'm blessed to have you in my family. That's insane. My district family wanted to know where you were going so i'll have to email them! :) way to be. Alright well My new companion's name is Sister Arbon! She's Basically from Salt Lake City and she goes to the U so that right there tell's ya how great she is! ha She has been on her mission for nine months, serving on the island for the whole time. So we both got put into a BRAND NEW area. It's called Brookswood. We got a brand new empty apartment so the first night we had to sleep on the ground! but it's all good because now we have beds! :) slowly but surely they are bringing us furniture! So we really are working from the ground up. Because it is a new area, we have no investigators or anything. So we have had to do lots of tracting trying to find people. Lucky for us, our ward is AMAZING! like you don't even understand. They are all about the missionary work here. They haven't had sister missionaries in this area in over 20 plus years so they have anxiously been waiting for our arrival. They really want to take care of us. For example, every Sunday we will give them a grocery list of like bread, eggs, milk, etc., and than they have members buy it for us and give it to us the next week! how incredibly sweet is that?! they don't even need to because we can buy our own! so nice. Also, we have dinner plans with a family every night for the rest of the month! last Friday was the only day we made our own dinner because they had a fireside that night. How amazing right? I still can not even believe it. All the ward talks about is missionary work. Our bishop is Bishop Towns. Him and everyone else in the ward are mostly all converts and it's so cool to see how passionate they are about the work. They realize the importance of it. Our church building is in the same parking lot as the TEMPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it's completly wild.

Our mission is SO huge! it's about the size of Texas and a half! So the fact that we are where the temple is at.. well it's pretty cool! :) my four Canadians from my MTC district are all spread out! the closest I am to one of them is like four hours away! Sister Kindlespire had to take a plane to her area! that's crazy! ha Brookswood is about 45 minutes away from the mission home! Our ward boundaries go right against the U.S. border, but ward boundaries here are a lot bigger. Our ward is split in half between us and two elders! So they take the lower half by the border. So anyway I'm excited to be in this ward. There is a lot of potential here. Sunday was ward conference and the Stake President reminded everyone that he challenged them to all come up with one refferal for the missionaries by April. So they really want to help us bring others unto christ! :) That's pretty crazy. I'm so blessed to have their support and love. I have a pretty bad cold right now so on Sunday when I met everyone, I was all stuffed up and sneezy! ha they were all concerned! Passing me tissues and what not! ha I love being a missionary. Wearing Christ name on me is an honor. I don't ever want to let him down or disgrace his name! I'm representin yo. I love Jesus Christ and I want others to love him and know what's he's done for us. It's because of him that we're all here. He is the light of our lives. He has given us so much and we owe it to him to do what is right. Not an hour goes by that I don't chat with him. He is the ULTIMATE listener and comforter.I wouldn't be able to do this without the spirit. It's not about me out here. It's about our savior. We are just instruments in his hands. Conversion happens through the Spirit. I love the Spirit! :) like you don't even know. Ha well I loved talking to you all at the airport! that seems like forever ago. I really am so blessed to have the family I have. Us Petersen's know what's up. Please tell the ward hi for me! I miss them all like crazy. On Sunday they asked me to share my testimony in front of the youth and all I could think about was our youth! So I bore my testimony to the first ward. Dad I loved all your emails! they were great. Your Ballard story is fantastic. haha Same with the Savior and the older Ballard. I could feel the power while I read it. I am going to try and read your talk, but I might not have time today! we'll see! I'm sure it's amazing. I wish I could talk to you all more! there is just so much I feel and have to say! I really just need a good hour each night to talk to Mollie and Tara! ha I miss them so much. They are some of the best people I know. I think about them every single day. Well I have to go now. Thank you for supporting me! I feel the love and It strengthens me so much. Keep it classy everyone and remember 1-10-15 because by small and simple things are GREAT things brought to pass! I believe that with all my heart! Tell everyone I love them! WORK iT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! five stars!!! I LOVE YOU GUYS! :] LOVE, ME! JAYNANNE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)p.s. The church is true. Amen.